


One In a Thousand

by RileyC



Category: Agent Pendergast series - Child & Preston
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-15
Updated: 2010-06-15
Packaged: 2017-10-10 03:30:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyC/pseuds/RileyC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fanfromfla was daydreaming about an ending to Wheel of Darkness where Vincent is waiting when the ship docks in New York. This was the result:</p><p>After his harrowing experience aboard the luxury liner Britannia, Agent Pendergast could use a little TLC. As luck, and alternate universes, would have it, Lt. D'Agosta is on hand to help out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One In a Thousand

_891 Riverside Drive, Manhattan_

Striking a huge **X** through the page he’d just written, Lt. Vincent D’Agosta ripped the sheet off the legal pad, crumpled it up and tossed in onto the fire in the beaux arts mansion’s library. The flames quickly consumed the paper and D’Agosta was back to staring at a blank page.

Proctor clearing his throat and saying, “If I may, sir?” was a welcome interruption.

“You don’t have to call me sir; call me Vinnie.”

“Yes, sir.”

D’Agosta sighed. “What’s up?”

“There’s been a message from Agent Pendergast. He wants me to come to Newfoundland.”

D’Agosta perked up at that. “What the hell’s he doing in Newfoundland?” The last D’Agosta had heard, Pendergast and Constance were somewhere in Tibet.

“Apparently there’s been an incident involving a cruise ship, sir.”

Envisioning something like _Titanic Meets Godzilla_, D’Agosta asked, “When do we leave?”

“Immediately.”

Sounded good to D’Agosta.

~*~

_St. John’s, Newfoundland_

Far more gratified to be standing upon solid ground than he ever would have expected, Special Agent Pendergast breathed in the cool, damp air and let it out again slowly. He felt Constance touch his arm, looked at her. “Are you all right?”

“Are you?” she asked, expression grave.

He nodded. “I am. It was … unsettling.”

“I think it was more than that.”

Pendergast took her hands in his, his own expression somber but confident. “I _will_ be all right.” He kissed her forehead. “We both will be.”

After a moment, Constance nodded, and it did his heart good that she was, at least, willing to consider that could be true. “What happens now?”

“We complete our mission. Then,” he sighed, “we see.” For quite possibly the first time in his life he wasn’t prepared to plan further ahead than that. “I sent a message for Proctor to meet us. He should be -- ah, there,” he spotted Proctor waiting by a rented SUV, and started over there with Constance, only to stop in his tracks as someone else got out of the passenger side.

“Vincent?” Pendergast could feel the most astonishing impulse pushing to take over him as he saw his friend there; in its way, as a great a shock as the _tulpa_ had been.

“Figured you might need some backup,” D’Agosta said, the gentle warmth in his eyes doing a great deal to chase away lingering shadows. “Looks like you’ve got it under control, though,” D’Agosta added, taking in the _Britannia_ and all the activity engulfing the great ship.

“Your company is never extraneous, my dear Vincent.” Pendergast winced inwardly at how that must sound, but D’Agosta only smiled.

“Good to know,” he remarked wryly, and touched his elbow. He looked past Pendergast to Constance, taking in her shorter hair and updated wardrobe, nodded. “How’s it going?”

She nodded back, managed a wan smile. “It’s … going.”

“Yeah. You look good.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“That’s the kind of thing you might’ve forgotten to tell her,“ D’Agosta teased Pendergast. Head tipped back to consider the heavily overcast sky, he added, “There a reason we’re standing around in the pouring rain?”

Pendergast smiled, already feeling many metaphorical pounds lighter. “We might retire to a hotel.”

“Good thing we booked some rooms,” D’Agosta said and gestured them to the waiting SUV. “After you.”

Pendergast touched his back lightly. “Your presence has been missed, Vincent.”

D’Agosta held his gaze, nodded. “Yours too, Aloysius.”

~*~

“So what’s been going on?” D’Agosta asked. “You look like hell.

Pendergast’s smile was bleak, a match to the look in his eyes. “An apt description, Vincent.” He locked the door of their hotel room before setting down the box he’d been carrying, handling it with great delicacy. Not as if it contained some valued treasure, but rather that some object extraordinarily dangerous and repellent resided within. “It’s … been enlightening, shall we say.”

D’Agosta nodded, considering that and combining it with the agent’s haggard appearance. “What’s in the box? Doesn’t look big enough to be anything that bad.”

“Do you remember the story of Pandora?”

He weighed that information as well, nodded again. “Rings a bell, yeah. Seems like the one thing that didn’t get away was hope,” he said, and believed he could detect a flicker of the same beginning to warm those silvery eyes.

“Yes, there is always hope,” Pendergast said, coming over to where D’Agosta stood by the bed. “You look well.”

“Keeping the pounds off anyway.”

Pendergast nodded, smoothed a hand along the lapel of D’Agosta’s brown suit, looked slightly askance at the somewhat garish tie D’Agosta had bought from a street vendor for a buck. “I approve the cut of your suit,” he said.

D’Agosta smiled. “Hey, love me, love my ties.”

“Yes, well, they are a better vice than those cigars you used to smoke, I suppose.” Pendergast looked at him seriously then. “I must confess I experienced the most extraordinary impulse when I saw you on the dock, Vincent.”

“Yeah?” D’Agosta splayed a hand against Pendergast’s chest. Not restraining; touching, making sure they were both really here. “What kind of impulse would that be?”

“This kind,” Pendergast whispered in the instant before their lips met.

Yeah, D’Agosta’d had that same itch.

It had been awhile -- _Italy_ \-- but memories flowed back at that first brush of lips. Memories that let their bodies fit together comfortably, the kiss growing deeper as hands stroked and squeezed, loosening clothing as they tumbled to the mattress.

When he sensed something inexorable in the way he was being pressed against the mattress, something adamant in the grip on his wrists, something near to bruising in the kisses pressed against his mouth, his throat, D’Agosta said his name, “Aloysius,” firm as he could with oxygen-starved lungs.

A beat, then Pendergast buried his face in the crook of D’Agosta’s neck, breath coming hard, a shudder passing through his lean body that felt more like fear than unrestrained passion. “Forgive me, Vincent.”

Able to free both hands now, D’Agosta slipped one arm around Pendergast’s shoulders, his other hand stroking the blond head, murmuring, “Shh, it’s okay, it’s okay. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“You’ll think I’m mad.”

“You know me better than that.”

Drawing back, Pendergast curved a hand along D’Agosta’s face, planted a kiss by the side of his mouth. “You are a far better friend than I deserve, Vincent D’Agosta.”

“Okay, _now_ you are talking crazy.” D’Agosta made him stretch out comfortably on the bed. “Now, talk to me.” Following his gut, he asked, “Is it about that box?”

“What’s inside it, yes.” Pendergast leased a pent up sigh, scooted closer and rested a hand over D’Agosta’s heart as if its steady beat could ground him. “Do you ever wonder who you would be, Vincent, had you made different choices at critical points in your life? If you felt yourself free of society’s restraints?”

“Yeah, I guess.” He slowly stroked up and down Pendergast’s arm. “I don’t think I’d be all that different.”

“That must be comforting.”

“Or it just means I’m hopelessly predictable.”

Pendergast smiled, kissed the hollow of D’Agosta’s throat. “My dear Vincent, believe me when I say you are the least predictable person I know.” His expression clouded, sobered. “At least, outside the confines of my family.”

Expecting that, D’Agosta nodded and waited, ready to give him as much time as he needed.

~*~

“Are you ever going to tell me about this?” Pendergast lazily stroked a hand along his friend’s side, settling at D’Agosta’s hips, fingers exploring a scar he’d discovered there.

“Nothing to tell.”

“I believe I beg to differ.”

D’Agosta reached over to tease gentle fingers along a scar on Pendergast’s abdomen. “How’d you get this one?”

Pendergast caught hold of D’Agosta’s hand, raised it to his lips and kissed the roughened knuckled, turned it to press a kiss to the broad palm. “My dear Vincent, I asked first.” He could hear the relaxation in his voice, feel it in his body, and had to conclude that confession truly was good for the soul. Nor did a bout of lovemaking come amiss, either.

Heaving a put upon a sigh, Vincent said, “Fine. I got shot in the ass my rookie year. Happy now?”

Pendergast smiled, caressed the injured hip. “There are worse places to be shot.”

“Maybe, but nobody ever lets you forget. So?” D’Agosta touched the scar again.

Dropping his head back to the pillow, Pendergast aimed a pensive glance at the window. It was full dark outside now, the rain still coming down. “It’s a souvenir of my encounter with The Surgeon,” he finally said, and found that memory carried far less weight now.

Serious now, D’Agosta said, “I’m sorry I missed that one.”

Thinking of Patrick O’Shaughnessy’s terrible fate, Pendergast pulled D’Agosta closer, kissed his temple. “I’m not. It was … very bad.”

“Understatement?”

“Oh yes.”

D’Agosta nodded. “I was afraid it might be something Diogenes did to you.”

Strangely touched by that, Pendergast said, “No. The scars my brother left aren’t visible.”

Now D’Agosta drew him closer, enfolding Pendergast in his arms as if to protect him from even memories. “I wish I could make it better, Aloysius.”

“You do, you are.”

Resting there in D’Agosta’s arms, content to do that, Pendergast wondered if he would ever cease being surprised by this man.

The first time they had met and taken each other’s measure, he had been exceptionally impressed: A highly efficient police officer, not devoid of compassion, not driven by ego and career advancement, and well able to bring imagination to the task at hand. Under the circumstances, anything less could have made that first case vastly more difficult to work.

Anyone less, having just heard about Pendergast’s experience with the _tulpa_, would have had one clear objective: To put a great deal of distance between himself and the madman, and never look back.

“Vincent?”

“Hmm?”

“Does it never occur to you wonder if I’m mad?”

“Oh yeah.” D’Agosta rolled on top of him, hands cupped loosely around Pendergast’s neck. “When you want to do things like run off and get torn apart by a pack of dogs, I definitely think you’ve lost your marbles.”

Even though D’Agosta spoke lightly, Pendergast heard the underlying pain that lingered in those words, from that incident, even now. “I am sorry to have caused you distress, Vincent, but … there was no other way.”

If D’Agosta remained unconvinced of that, it wasn’t the matter he wanted to pursue just now.

Lowering his head, D’Agosta kissed Pendergast’s mouth, an eyelid, the shell of an ear. “We’ve all got that inside us, Aloysius, that … Mr. Hyde part who, if we let it, could indulge in every temptation, succumb to every unworthy desire. Our honor, our integrity, our _conscience_ keeps it in check. You can’t grow a conscience, and you can’t throw away one your already possess.”

Looking up at him, Pendergast felt the conviction behind those words and welcomed it, even though doubts lingered in his mind. “If the choice is taken from you, though, if you are so overwhelmed that you cannot find a way out, a way back--”

D’Agosta stopped him with another kiss, clasped his hands and pressed them down against the sheets. “You found a way out, a way back.”

Searching his eyes, wanting to take that certainty into himself, Pendergast asked, “You’re sure?”

“You think I’d be here otherwise?”

“If you thought you could save me -- even from myself, especially from myself -- yes.”

D’Agosta conceded that with a look. “You’re too important to lose.”

Shying away from that, Pendergast said, “I’m not sure I can agree with that.”

“Yeah, well,” D’Agosta kissed the side of his neck, ran his tongue over the pulse beating there, “you don’t have a say about it.” He drew back to look at him again. “I know you’re not going to quit the high wire act, Aloysius, but just remember I’ll be there to catch you if you fall.”

Pendergast stared back at him, finding that far more difficult to process than he suspected it should be. Stroking a finger along D’Agosta’s face, he quoted:

_“Nine hundred and ninety-nine can’t bide  
The shame and mocking and laughter,  
But the thousandth man will stand by your side  
To the gallow’s-foot -- and after.”_

“Cheerful.”

“It is, actually,” Pendergast murmured and pulled him into another kiss, bodies tangling as they rolled across the sheets.

~*~

“Have you ever been to Tibet, Vincent?”

Stretching comfortably and yawning expansively, D’Agosta snuggled back into the warm sheets, not appreciating the morning light streaming through the window. “Can’t say as I have.”

“Come with us, with me.”

D’Agosta sighed and raised himself on one elbow, having to admit to being sorely tempted. “Love to -- but Captain Singleton might have some problems with that.”

Heaving a disgruntled sigh, Pendergast said, “You need to be independently wealthy.”

D’Agosta grinned. “Well, yeah, that’d help.” Resting his head on Pendergast’s shoulder, he said, “You’re coming back, right?”

There was a hesitation long enough to worry him, and D’Agosta sat up to study Pendergast’s face. “What?”

“I had been thinking about staying at Gsalrig Chongg for some time,” Pendergast said, looking pensive about it.

“You had been?”

A tiny smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “I have been reconsidering, however,” Pendergast admitted.

“Glad to hear it.”

Pendergast gave him a curious look, almost as if surprising himself. “I believe I am as well.”

~end~

====================  
"The Thousandth Man"

One man in a thousand, Solomon says,  
Will stick more close than a brother.  
And it's worth while seeking him half your days  
If you find him before the other.  
Nine nundred and ninety-nine depend  
On what the world sees in you,  
But the Thousandth man will stand your friend  
With the whole round world agin you.

'Tis neither promise nor prayer nor show  
Will settle the finding for 'ee.  
Nine hundred and ninety-nine of 'em go  
By your looks, or your acts, or your glory.  
But if he finds you and you find him.  
The rest of the world don't matter;  
For the Thousandth Man will sink or swim  
With you in any water.

You can use his purse with no more talk  
Than he uses yours for his spendings,  
And laugh and meet in your daily walk  
As though there had been no lendings.  
Nine hundred and ninety-nine of 'em call  
For silver and gold in their dealings;  
But the Thousandth Man he's worth 'em all,  
Because you can show him your feelings.

His wrong's your wrong, and his right's your right,  
In season or out of season.  
Stand up and back it in all men's sight --  
With that for your only reason!  
Nine hundred and ninety-nine can't bide  
The shame or mocking or laughter,  
But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side  
To the gallows-foot -- and after!

\--Rudyard Kipling 


End file.
